There are many techniques for generating geometries used in the fabrication of a target three-dimensional (3D) object. In one such technique, “3D printing” allows for the fabrication of highly complex geometries which are often used to solve difficult engineering and design problems. For example, wire frame, lattice and other types of complex meshes associated with 3D printing are currently used for the creation of structural scaffolding or supports with a wide range of application in the fields of engineering and design.
Existing 3D modeling software used to generate these complex meshes are often limited. One major barrier is that accurate fixturing geometries (bolt holes, flanges, pins, bearing mounts, etc.) are typically a post-processing step. Moreover, some fixture features require a precise “hard” geometry (such as an exact diameter opening for an alignment pin) that current design techniques are not capable of accurately capturing or recreating in a computationally tractable manner.
In some situations, when certain fixture features or physical constraints are to be included in particular design geometries, one example technique may apply Boolean operations to add and remove specific platonic geometries. However, this may result in an un-optimized final geometry that may also include certain side effects.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example geometry 100. In this example, the final design of geometry 100 may inelegantly mash platonic fixturing geometries and hard boundaries to portions of geometry 100. As illustrated in FIG. 1, this may result in geometry 100 having one or more large stress concentration points 102 at intersections as well as the possibility of wasted material at certain locations 104 (e.g., sharp corners).
Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods and systems to rapidly transform geometries to an efficiently designed final form without introducing undesired or unwanted extra features.